Institute students and faculty travel the world

All posts filed under “Student Essays”

by Megan Mitchell, M.A.R. ’15, religion and visual art “The faithful will feel a need to daub the symbols of their heavens onto dark cellar walls—to ensure what is around them will fortify the truths within them.” Alain De Botton, The Architecture of Happiness, 112 […]

by Knox Sutterfield, M.M. ’14, choral conducting Every country and region of the world is rich with its own history, but when it comes to sacred music, worship, and art, Italy holds a special place. This relatively young country is brimming with artifacts of its […]

by Wyatt Smith, M.M. ’15, organ “Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum, Ita desiderat anima mea te, Deus.” These words from Psalm 42 were the theme that I held close to my heart throughout the recent study tour of Italy with the ISM. In visiting […]

Sara Couden, M.M. ‘14, voice One of the more incredible music-related experiences we had in Rome was singing Palestrina’s Missa Ave Maria as part of the Sunday service at the Church of SS. Trinita dei Pellegrini, a church where Palestrina himself actually worked. Being able […]

by Joanna Murdoch, M.A.R. ’15, religion and literature As a student of religion and literature, I’m alert to words. I care for narrative. Hooked on books, etc. A large part of my excitement over the ISM’s 2014 study trip to Italy had to do with […]

by MARILYN KENDRIX, MDiv ’13. Amid icons and organs, chanting and mosaics, divine liturgy and evangelical exhortations, the Institute of Sacred Music lived up to its interdisciplinary mission during this spring’s study trip to Greece and Turkey. During the last two years of study, I […]

by OLIVIA HILLMER, MAR ’12 Leaving behind the suburbs of Athens, we filed slowly into a large open studio flooded with light, nestling into chairs, finding seats on the floor or standing in the back of the room, eventually filling every available space with […]

by CALEB BENNETCH, MM ’13 Throughout the course of Schola Cantorum’s mini-tour and the ISM’s study trip, I was constantly amazed by the breathtaking buildings surrounding us. From the soaring columns of the Acropolis, to the unfathomable ancient beauty of Aya Irini, from the […]

By Benjamin Straley, MM ’10, MDiv ’12. I remember the opening banquet of my first year at the ISM, in the fall of 2008. Martin Jean read the following passage from Augustine’s Confessions: But when I love you, what do I love? It is not physical beauty […]